Flea

Chapter Fifty Five

Dabi loitered at the edge of a meadow, noticing how streaming sunlight created dappled patterns of ballroom dancers. He could almost smell the happiness etched in pale leaf mosaics, which left him feeling thoroughly disgruntled. The scarred man had experienced nearly every nightmare his twisted imagination could concoct. This was new. Light shone just around the corner, yet he felt so filthy he couldn't bring himself to tarnish it. Somehow, lingering so close to purity and yet remaining unable to ever understand was worse than being enveloped in hatred.

"You don't belong here either, do you?"

A reedy voice piped up behind Dabi and he whipped around to find a tiny girl in a neat blue dress that matched her eyes. From the uncertain quaver in her question and the way the brat tucked chocolate brown curls behind her ears, he'd startled her as badly as she him.

"Sorry, maybe I'm jumping to conclusions. Just... You don't seem like the ballroom dancer type."

The dream was getting stranger and stranger, but at least it didn't feature his pop's ugly mug yet. Dabi decided to go along with her ramble and stall for time.

"Not exactly cinderella yourself," he grumbled in reply, folding mauled arms over his chest. The kid was so tiny it was like talking to an admittedly less grotesque garden gnome.

"No," she agreed quietly, eyes downcast. Her minuscule hands wound around each other nervously. Dabi hated kids with a specific passion; they were like drunk adults who took everything to heart. Most people would look at the brat and think 'cute.' He just saw a leaky pouch of tears, urine, and vomit.

"What's your name?" he sighed, leaning against a cream coloured tree and spying on the dancers again. One almost looked like Maeve, wearing the only sleeved dress in the ballroom.

"427 9:45:34."

Dabi blinked at her a couple of times, then shrugged. His imagination was really running riot with that one; it was almost impressive.

"Everyone just calls me Flea, though," she added, as a way of abating his confusion. It wasn't effective and was followed by an increasingly uncomfortable silence. 

"Did you come here with me? Are you part of my timeline?" The girl continued. She seemed to take his disinterest as something that needed to be filled. Dabi stalked away through some trees in the hope she wouldn't follow, but the brat scrambled to get under his feet like an overly anxious terrier. 

"Wait! Wandering will disrupt the lower pre-subconscious levels more than they already are-"

"How much sense you're making is the same as the amount of fucks I give. Go prepare the forest fires or rabid beavers, either's fine," Dabi snorted, crushing miniature sunflowers beneath leather boots with each step. Both options had been components of nightmares in the past, which he had a suspicion was where the dream was heading.  

"Okay... Are you with the Yakuza? If you're here to pick up Greyhound you're part of my timeline."

"Yeah, sure. I've got a few poodles already but can fit one in the torture chamber if it's skinny enough."

The kid's sapphire eyes raised up to the sunny canopy in an oddly familiar gesture. It was similar to the exasperated eye rolls his teachers used to give him. Except they were all middle-aged private school asshats; this girl couldn't be more than five. 

"You don't have a mask. Probably not then," she decided, ignoring his previous comment, "I didn't think it was possible for independent memory fragments to be displaced. Stop-"

Dabi abruptly pulled to a halt, and the brat's tiny legs propelled her into the back of his knees. They'd emerged into yet another bright clearing. This one opened to reveal pathways formed from beautifully intricate branches winding up into treetops so high it left him feeling lightheaded. The trees he'd been winding through previously felt like mere undergrowth in comparison. He'd never seen anything like it, especially not in dreams.